Recent Tasting Notes

I just made this again. I had a pretty terrible time with it last time, but it was the only caffeinated thing in my work stash, so I tried again. I didn’t steep it for too long and used hotter water. It made all the difference. Comparable to regular ol’ Lipton black tea. I don’t get the green tea flavors at all. It’s totally fine, though. Works in a pinch.

So I was always under the impression that I didn’t really like earl grey tea, but while I still don’t think it will ever be my favorite, I am starting to enjoy it with milk and sugar (one of the few teas I will only drink that way). I had this today with french vanilla creamer and milk, and it was SO good. Granted, french vanilla creamer can make almost anything taste heavenly, but I really liked the combination with the bergamot. I’ve tried a couple of mediocre cream earl grey’s but I don’t think I’ve tried a vanilla earl grey. I’ll have to look for one. A vanilla-cream version would be even better. Any recommendations?

Preparation

DAVID’s has an earl grey as you’ve described. I find the more floral EGs are hideous to me, but the more mellow or rounded ones are quite lovely, and I almost always have them with milk/cream and sweetener – a lesson learned from my British tea adventures.

Found this stashed (hah!) away in a different drawer where I’d forgotten it. It’s so very, very ginger! There’s also a strong but not sour lemony aftertaste (lemongrass is very good for strong-but-not-sour). Very tasty and a good palate cleanser. You could probably turn this into a dessert tea by adding sugar or honey.

I planned to do a taste comparison between this and the probiotic tea ( http://steepster.com/chai-mera/posts/285733 ), but you can just read the reviews. The other is a mild lemon tea with a hint of ginger and this is GINGER with LEMON.

UPDATE: Surprisingly I did not have to remove the tea-bag, it didn’t overbrew.

COMMUTERNOTES: Individually packaged teabags. Good for after lunch, possibly less good as a during-commute tea (since it might overbrew).

(No numerical rating because I really Was Not In The Mood for a mint tea and expected this to be more cinnamon.)

Although the first ingredients are cinnamon and orange, this is really a spearmint tea, regardless of whether you do a short or long steep. The other flavors keep the mint from being overwhelming and balance things a bit; probably a good blend if you like that sort of thing.

Unfortunately I just discovered that I don’t like spearmint – this reminds me too much of chewing gum. If I had to rate right now I’d give it a 35. Will try it again when I’m actually in a mint mood and can give a fairer rating.

You can also leave it in a thermos of cold water for a faint hint of flavor during your work day.

Flavors: Spearmint

Preparation

Think it would have been better without the Mate. I love Yerba Mate tea, and I love salted caramel, but I found the flavours together to be a bit odd. To me, salted caramel is a dessert tea and mate adds this earthy, smoky flavour that just doesn’t go well with the caramel.

edit: I have to add that this tea has really grown on me. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, or maybe the caramel comes out more when the steep time is longer, but I have been having this Mate most mornings now and really enjoying the earthy, buttery, caramel flavours.

Preparation

While I like the initial flavor and most of the body, the finish disappoints. It tastes thin and weak. Yes, I did mention it was smooth, but as I work my way through the cup, the aftertaste seems like I drank this an hour ago, not just a few seconds. I wonder, if this has to do with the freshness of the ingredients. While my teabag did say to enjoy by August of 2017, I have had other blends that used both lemongrass and ginger root together, and the ginger, at least, was a powerful flavor throughout the tea. That said, I did enjoy this cup, and I would rate it a 72/100 on my personal enjoyment scale.

I received this tea in my Love with Food box this month. I’m always happy when they have tea in the box, even if they do have tea bags. I try to think to myself: it’s a step in the right direction, right? At least it’s not Liptons?

Anyway, I like this one alright. There’s a nice amount of bergamot to it, and the lavender so strong that it’s soapy. It’s a pleasant blend. Not bad for a bag.

So, I brought one of these bags home with me from Regina when I went to visit my Mom back in January; deliberately – this isn’t one of the mysterious ones that somehow inadvertently made it home with me.

You can pretty much just see my other note on this one because my opinion and experience about this tea didn’t really change with the second cup – though this one had a longer steep time and I think, consequently, was a little more maple-y and less apple flavoured. But everything else I experienced the first time stayed true.

Like I said the first time I had this one, I’m pretty sure it was a seasonal/holiday blend, and it’s not one of the dozens of Stash teas we carry in our store – but if I happened to find this one down the road and it wasn’t stupidly expensive, I could definitely see myself maybe picking some up. It’s pretty decent for a bagged tea – and could be a nice herbal to keep around.

One of a few teas in my Mom’s tea cupboard that actually relatively interested me, so I stole a couple of the teabags from the cupboard and made one to drink with lunch.

This had a fancier box than other Stash teas I’ve seen, and it’s not one we carry at my store (and we carry a lot of Stash teas) so I’m wondering if, based on the flavour, this was a seasonal/Christmas blend? There’s really no smell to the dry teabag; if I concentrate maybe a little apple. It’s very weak though; I hope the tea itself has more flavour.

Sipping on it now; and there definitely is more flavour than what the dry leaf led me to believe. It really does taste like apple cider; good apple cider too! Just the right balance of sweet, tart, and spice. And speaking of that spice, there’s obviously cinnamon but the nutmeg in here is a really nice touch too. That’s the first wave of flavour but then it eases a little into the maple; it’s a little raw and unrefined tasting with a sappy quality. A like it! It makes the cup sweet and layered, and I like that this one doesn’t feel completely put together, with the ’T’s crossed and ’I’s dotted. Sometimes a little reliable inconsistency makes a tea good. If that makes any sense at all.

There are also a few other interesting notes here; I’m picking woody-cedar like notes too! Maybe it’s a trick of the mind because of the raw, sappy maple or maybe part of it is from the rooibos – but it’s very enjoyable regardless. Actually, now that I think of it the more I’m sure it’s from the rooibos. I love how natural and earthy this tea tastes though; for once the wood like quality is contributing something that enhances the tea flavourings!

I cold steeped it last night, and it was actually pretty good! I didn’t realize it was a rooibos until I went to drink it. It’s not a terrible rooibos, but it’s not fantastic either. Somewhere in the middle. The strawberry flavour was very clean, and I could even tell it was supposed to be pomegranate. It was like… watered down juice. I guess I used to use 2-3 tea bags in the amount of water I used, but I only had one and wasn’t thinking. :)

I’d totally get it if I was in a pinch and it was on sale. Decent flavours, decent rooibos, a really refreshing cold steep. Win. But would I recommend it? Not unless bagged grocery store teas were your only option. (And not the FANCY teas MissB has been finding in Europe. More like the usual North American boring stuff… ;) )

My first adventure with hot peach tea was an herbal that was far too peachy for me, or my peach loving relatives. I picked up this one in hopes some oolong would help balance it, and I prefer a white peach over a yellow one any day.

The steep time for this in the instructions was a lot longer than I expected—up to 8 minutes. That makes me happy because that’s usually how long it takes me to drink the cup. ^^

The peach in this is pretty strong (a bit of citrus shows up the longer you steep this), but like I hoped, the oolong tames it down. Now, that doesn’t mean I can out-rightly identify where the oolong is hiding, but I have faith I like this tea because of it’s influence somewhere in this flavor profile. For those expecting an oolong-tasting tea, this is not the tea for you. However, if you’re after a peach flavor that doesn’t make your ears tingle, I give a thumbs up.

I did this the just under boiling and ice cube method, and steeped for a round two and a half minutes. Ahh, water tempering. I love you.
This tea is very vegetal. Although I primarily found it light, the flavour came out a lot stronger when I let it cool a bit and had some vanilla yoghurt alongside. (I always have vanilla ice cream at Japanese restaurants, or vanilla-based ones at least, this is partially why; the two bring out each other’s flavours a lot.)
For a tea bag, this is not bad at all. Though I still have a lot of loose green tea to go through as well, I know I won’t mind going through the remaining tea bags I have for this either. Yay for green?

Preparation

I’m normally not a huge fan of tea blends, especially ones using rose and berries, but this one is actually quite delicious.

It is basically a black tea with added what-have-yous, namely cocoa, rose, raspberry, and blue cornflower. All these things together made me pause at first, as usually when you have a blend with this many things, it comes out a mishmash of sensation with no real direction.

Not the case here. Each flavor could be picked out fresh and ready, but overall it was still clearly a black tea with added flavor.

I used 2 heaping tablespoons of leaves in my 32 ounce Bodum Assam, rinsed first, added boiling water, and let it steep for 3 minutes, the minimum recommendation on the package.

It gave me a dark, velvety, reddish black liqueur with an aroma of black tea with cocoa, rose, and berry. The taste itself gets a little more specific, and you can point out the rose, raspberry, and cocoa adding to the fine black tea base taste.

As the package says, it is eclectic and quirky, just like Portland. That’s pretty accurate, I would say.

When I first purchased this tea i was quite skeptic, I was sure that the tea’s name would overshoot as most tea’s with ambitious titles do. I couldn’t have been happier to be wrong. The tea starts out with a bitter and sweet hint of black tea and cinnamon which fades beautifully into a sweet chocolate aftertaste (yes it even tastes like white chocolate)… I’m not quite sure how they did it , but they hit the nail on the head with this one. it’s the closest thing to coffee you’ll drink that is actually a tea, and that kind of blows my mind. This is the second stash tea blend that I have tried and I’m happy to say they have a new customer .